


Family History

by Not_You



Series: Will Graham And The Accidental Harem [8]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6483166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has to clarify to Morgan exactly why she was born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family History

Will isn't expecting trouble, even though he has had so many lessons in how one should always expect trouble. But it's a gorgeous summer day and he's on his way home to the people he loves, with a cooler full of trout. Things are seldom more auspicious. His first clue that anything is wrong is when the dogs who stayed home come whining up to him, obviously worried about something. Will tenses, and he's holding his filleting knife when he opens the door, with no awareness of having reached for it.

“Will?” Beverly yelps, and he tucks the knife away.

“Sorry. What's wrong?”

“Oh, the dogs. They're just sure the end has come because Morgan pitched a fit. She's still having it, really. She ran off to the barn and hasn't come back. She has yelled back every time Margot goes to check on her, though.”

Will sighs, tucking neatly-packaged fish into the freezer and the fridge. “And now?”

“Now she and Alana are upstairs brooding. I'm down here trying to keep morale up and make enough fridge space for your fish. How'd I do?”

“Great,” Will says, and stands up from putting the last of the fish away to kiss her. His heart is still beating a little fast, and she hugs him tightly, kissing the scar on his cheek.

“It's okay, honey,” she says softly. “Just family shit.”

Will sighs, leaning on her for a long moment. “Give my love to Alana and Margot. I'm gonna go talk to the kid.”

“It would be cool if you could get her out of the barn before Molly and Walter get back from the game.”

“Yeah, they don't need the buzzkill I got. You guys,” he says to the dogs, who are clustering around his ankles and gazing soulfully up at him, “it's not the end of the world if Morgan's upset.”

“I think she might've found out she was conceived for tax reasons. I kind of walked into the middle of it.”

“I'll ask,” Will says, and the dogs follow him to the barn. It's quiet and cool on a day like today, and he stops to visit the horses, who all poke their heads over their stall doors and nudge him for treats, accepting affection instead because he forgot to bring anything.

“Morgan?” he calls after a few minutes. At first there's no response, and then his daughter pokes her head over the edge of the loft, all big blue eyes and tangled curls.

“Dad?”

“Yeah.” He comes to the base of the ladder. “You've been out here a while.”

“Did you get any fish?”

“I got lots of fish. Can I come up?”

She sighs. “Sure.”

Will climbs up, leaving the dogs to find comfortable napping places while they wait. His arm twinges a little on the way up, but soon he's up on the carpet. What used to be a totally adult clubhouse now belongs much more to the children, but the essentials are the same. 

Morgan hugs him. Up close he can see how puffy her eyes still are, though she seems to be done actively crying. “You want a granola bar, Dad?”

“I would love a granola bar,” Will tells her, and she also provides a juice box to wash it down. They nibble in silence for a while, Morgan eating hers more quickly and balling up the silvery wrapper, pitching it into the trashcan.

“...Mom didn't trick you or anything, right?”

“Trick me when?” Will asks, breaking off the last quarter of his bar and handing it to Morgan, who devours it.

“When you guys made me. I mean, if Mom just had me 'cause she needed the cash, who knows what else happened?”

Will sighs, and holds out an arm. “Come here, Morgan.” Morgan scoots over and tucks herself in under his arm. She's such a skinny little thing, all bones and angles and eyes. He kisses her rough mop of curls, self-cut in a fit of frustration with her long hair, and hugs her in against his side.

“Sweetheart, we haven't told you the whole story about that because it's complicated and has a lot of sad things from the past that we don't want to talk about.” Morgan is a lot more familiar with this concept than a lot of kids her age, and she nods. “But,” Will says, “I guess you do need to know. Some of this is your mother's to tell, but let's see... Okay. You know how you don't have grandparents from your mom?”

“Yeah,” Morgan says. “She never talks about them, either.”

“That's because they weren't good to her,” Will says. “They didn't like that she loves other women, and they liked her brother better.”

“Like in a fairytale?”

“...Yes, actually,” Will says, thinking it over. “Right down to a wicked brother. He was terrible to your mother, and they just let him do it. After they died, they left him _everything_. Not just money, but her house, the barn to keep her horses in, any of the cars to drive away in, everything.” He decides not to mention the Verger mob contacts and how Margot would have also been trying to duck people with a grudge against the Verger name while homeless. 

As it is, Morgan is wide-eyed with outrage. “Really?!”

“Really.”

“What a bunch of assholes!”

“Pretty much, yeah. There was only one way out, and that was to have a baby, because your grandparents weren't so mean that they'd let their grandchild have nothing. She also wanted you for you, Morgan. We've all loved you from the moment you were a positive pregnancy test, and don't you forget it.”

“And she didn't trick you?”

“No, honey.” Will hugs her where she's leaning on his side. “She got to know all of us and asked if we'd help make you.”

“Wow. …What happened then?”

“Well, then your uncle started bothering us, and then your mother told the FBI the kind of things he had been doing, and when they went to arrest him, there was an accident.” Will knows that someday Morgan will learn all the sordid details, but she's only ten. She doesn't need to hear about pigs being specially trained to eat people, or about her uncle's massive collection of child pornography. Will knows better than to think she never will hear it, but it's something to postpone for a while.

“So Mom had me to be free, not just for money?”

“Yeah, honey. And besides, we love you.” He gazes down into her face, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. “It's like... like if we bought a big dog to protect us. We'd think of that first, but it would still be a dog.”

Morgan giggles. “And you'd love it the second you saw it.”

Will grins. “Exactly.”

By the time they return to the house, hand in hand and surrounded by dogs, Molly and Walter have returned, glowing with victory, and Margot is frying fish while Alana sets the table. She looks to Morgan first, and the relief on her face when Morgan comes over to hug her is heartbreaking.

“I'd hug Mom,” she adds, “but she's frying.”

Alana laughs, nuzzling Morgan's tangled curls. “Molly?”

“On it,” Molly says, taking over the fish so Margot can come out and sit on the couch with Morgan in her lap, talking quietly to her, their fierce little faces looking even more alike than usual.


End file.
